Donald Trump in Iowa: 'Drudge is amazing'

7/25/15 2:58 PM EDT

OSKALOOSA, Iowa — Speaking here at a campaign event in Iowa, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump had high praise for a site that’s an important factor among conservatives and the media: The Drudge Report.

“Drudge, who is great by the way, Drudge is amazing," Trump said as he was retelling his story of visiting the border in Laredo, Texas.

Trump had little goodwill for the rest of the media in his speech here in front of a packed auditorium of more than 600 people at Oskaloosa High School (with at least 400 in an overflow room). The billionaire real estate mogul opened his speech by bashing The Des Moines Register —whose reporters he had banned from the event, his team said on Friday, because the paper had published an

editorial calling on Trump to drop out of the race.

“The Des Moines Register is standing outside too," Trump said to cheers from the audience. “It's a super liberal rag that’s not respected around here.”

(During the event, the Register’s chief political correspondent, Jennifer Jacobs, tweeted that the paper did in fact have a reporter inside the auditorium covering the event).

Trump said the press often misquotes him and doesn’t accurately report how many people come out to see him or how much he’s worth.

“A lot of political press is great like 30, 35 percent,” he said. “Some are so dishonest. You'll have a crowd like this and they'll say it’s minuscule.”

Trump also claimed that reporters have been calling him to apologize for mischaracterizing his remarks about Mexican immigrants.